Games coming back to Android Market in South Korea

Google has just announced that its bringing back games to the Android Market in South Korea. The decision follows Apple’s re-introduction of iOS platform games earlier this mont,h and comes because South Korea has changed its policy regarding mobile applications. Until recently, the South Korean government required that all games be appraised and audited by the “Game Rating Board,” a stringent demand that quickly prompted companies Apple and Google to remove their entire games category from their respective app stores.

Now that the South Korean policy has changed, Google is reassuring developers to check the “South Korea” box when submitting games as well as localize their apps for the particular region as necessary. Google claims that “Korea is now the second-largest consumer of apps worldwide,” and that “Korea has quickly become one of the top countries in Android device activations”, so there’s plenty of incentive for developers to do just both. Developers, rev your engines, as you have a whole new country now to please with hordes of mobile games.

Google also stated that “with the huge popularity of games on Android and the convenience of direct carrier billing in Korea, we expect to see a jump in game purchases and downloads in the weeks ahead.” This is especially true of Korea, who seems to thrive on video games in general (see Starcraft, Warcraft, and basically every online multiplayer game made by companies like Blizzard and others). Google’s made a smart decision to open up once again the Korea market. Now that the floodgates are once open, all they have to do is sit and wait for the developers to introduce a huge supply, and the Korean consumers, a huge demand for Android games.